System or network administrators spend a large amount of their time troubleshooting, identifying and repairing errors, problems and potential problems on the system. These errors are often simple problems like running out of disk space or a hung application, and require simple solutions like deleting unneeded files or restarting a process. Many times these problems are recurring and can be seen on several different machines. This constant troubleshooting and repairing of systems leads to the loss of otherwise productive time on the part of the administrator. There are several systems in the artificial intelligence (“AI”) realm which attempt to address these issues by creating a system of self-healing.
FIG. 1 depicts the elements that make up a typical computer for use in networked applications. The computer system 100 consists of a base computer 101 which comprises a processor 106, storage media such as a magnetic disk 107 and a high speed volatile main memory 105. An operating system and application programs 111 reside on the storage media 107 and are paged into main memory 105 as needed for computations performed by the processor 106. The base computer 101 may include optional peripheral devices including a video display 102, a printer or scanner 110, a keyboard 104, a pointing device (mouse) 103 and a connection 108 to a network 109. In a client environment, a user interacts with a Graphical User Interface (GUI) by using a keyboard 104 and mouse 103 in conjunction with the display of information on the display 102 under control of an application program (application 1) 112. The client application program 112 then interacts with remote users by way of the network 109.
In FIG. 2, an example of an Internet system is shown. A user 210 at client 201 uses applications on his system and can interact with clients 2-4, shown at 202-204, by way of a client-server computer 206 or directly. Applications 112 may be provided by each client 201-205 and/or the client server 206 or some remote server 208 by way of the network 207. The user 210 at client 1 can interact with a remote user 5, shown at 211, at client 5, shown at 205, by way of the Internet 207.